Nothing that comes
out this weekend is expected to blow the doors off the place, box
office-wise. However, there sure is a lot of volume between new wide
releases and a couple films expanding their reach. There are six in
total, which makes this one of the most singularly crowded weekends
in some time. Let's see the numerous options.
Love the Coopers
Director: Jessie
Nelson
Writer: Steven
Rogers
Starring: Diane
Keaton, Olivia Wilde, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Alex Borstein
There is seemingly
little to this beyond a ton of charming, comedic performers getting
together to hang out and make a movie. Every beat of the movie is
clear from the trailer, and it's all about the relatively innocent
lies we tell our family when we only see them once a year. This
Christmas story lets Diane Keaton and John Goodman ostensibly be the
leads as the parents of the Cooper family, and the idea of them
bouncing off each other is reason enough to get me to say go see it.
My All American
Director: Angelo
Pizzo
Writer: Angelo
Pizzo
Starring: Finn
Wittrock, Aaron Eckhart, Robin Tunney, Sarah Bolger
Inspiration.
Determination. The little guy succeeding against all odds. Those are
the types of things written all over the faces of the people in My
All American, written and directed by the man who did Rudy,
that classic of my Catholic high school health classes when the gym
coaches didn't feel like teaching. It's all very familiar, but Aaron
Eckhart – and his chin – is usually worth watching. If you're
into football and underdog stories, you need not read anymore of this
list.
The 33
Director: Patricia
Riggen
Writers: Mikko
Alanne, Craig Borten, Michael Thomas, Jose Rivera
Starring: Antonio
Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche
Based on the 2010
true story about the miners who became trapped underground in Chile,
The 33 brings a mostly veteran cast to dramatize something
that was already full of gripping pathos. These are people just going
to work and because of poor conditions, their workplace became unsafe
and nearly killed all of them.
It would be a lie
to say I'm particularly excited for this one, because from the
trailers I've seen – it's been attached to just about every movie
I've reviewed in the last six weeks for you fine Halfstackers –
make it all bombastic music and oddly accented English without the
Spanish these people actually spoke. It could be good, but it all
feels a bit too much like a TV movie with a slightly bigger budget.
Spotlight
Director: Tom
McCarthy
Writers: Tom
McCarthy, Josh Singer
Starring: Mark
Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John
Slattery
This one is being
hailed as one of the best movies about journalism ever made. As such,
this has quickly shot to the top of my most anticipated movies of the
year list, even if the investigation at its center – about the
Boston Globe team who unveiled the systematic molestation of
the Roman Catholic Church – is about as grim as it gets. Even
still, its cast is full of ringers and it has a
moody-yet-naturalistic look to it that should serve it well in
telling the story visually.
Trumbo
Director: Jay Roach
Writer: John
McNamara
Starring: Bryan
Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, John Goodman
Breaking Bad's
Bryan Cranston gets to subvert the villainous Walter White here with
screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a guy who was simply considered
a monster by the United States
Senate for his refusal to cooperate with the Black List communist
witch hunt in the 1950s. He was wily, though, and took on a slew of
ghostwriting jobs despite technically being barred from working in
Hollywood again, including Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus.
This
one is looking for Oscar contention, especially on the acting side,
and it has the cast to do so. The thing I worry about, with a broad
director like Jay Roach (the Austin Powers movies
and a bunch of made-for-HBO movies) calling the shots, that it can
easily fall into the trap of being too schmaltzy when making its
point about standing up for what's right. But hey, it's Cranston
being charming. You can't really top that.
Brooklyn
Director: John
Crowley
Writer: Nick Hornby
Starring: Saoirse
Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson
A young woman
(Saoirse Ronan) from Ireland makes her way across the Atlantic to
build a life for herself in New York. She finds love, but a death in
the family back home yanks her back across the ocean where she must
decide to stay with those she has always known – and the handsome
man (Gleeson) who wishes to marry her – or return to the new place
where she had just started to get a foothold before disaster struck.
By all accounts,
Brooklyn is as “classic Hollywood” as it gets, with
earnest love between the characters and between the filmmakers and
the Technicolor classics of the 1950s. It has a similarly bright
color palette and Ronan has done terrific work since she was a child
in Atonement. Gleeson has been part of some of the most
interesting movies of the last few years (Ex Machina, Frank).
Their involvement is enough, but the overwhelming reaction I've seen
to this one on Twitter makes it sound like the perfect romance for
this time of year.
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